Going Back in Time

This week, I had a surprise visitor.  I was sitting in my office, daydreaming about walking along the shores of Lake Michigan with the dog and bemoaning the fact that my right wrist and fingers are going numb from too much time on the keyboard, when I heard the little noise my computer makes, signalling that I had received an email.

Looking down on my screen, I saw that it was from a person I hadn't seen in yeeeeaaaars.  OK, by years, I'm guessing maybe about 25--when I was in graduate school at Loyola University in New Orleans.  And, this particular person was right here on campus, researching in our own Hesburgh Library, and asking if I was, in fact, the person she used to know back at Loyola.

I was.

And I wrote back and told her so.

An hour later, she knocked on my door.  How cool.

We also had lunch the next day.  And now I am sitting here at my office, and instead of working, I am reflecting upon the experience, which, in my opinion, was a good one. I really enjoyed seeing her and catching up.

College years are very formative ones, and there is (or at least, there should be) quite a bit of development occurring.  We encounter what we believe at that time to be the deepest truths of life in classes as well as in those late night discussions in our dorm rooms.  And, very importantly, bonding occurs in a way that it will at no other time.  It is impossible to envision that you won't be best friends for life with your college buddies.

However, the truth is that times change and so, too, do we.  Sometimes, the person you re-encounter does not seem to be the same one you left behind so many years ago, and it isn't easy to pick up where you left off.  While it can sometimes be a sad thing, I think it's entirely normal.  Educational systems would be complete failures if their students became frozen in time, and ceased to develop beyond the stage of being a college student.  The world would be one big "Animal House."  Parts of that may seem attractive, but I am not at all enamored with the thought of becoming embroiled in a food fight.

I, for one, have lost track of most of my friends from high school and college, although, happily, social networking has put me back in touch with some, and that alone is the subject for another blog post.  Here on campus, we often warn our college students about how they soon will leave here and have to experience life in the "real world".  It's a cliche, yes, but in fact, the term does signify something important; and I do think that many students, upon commencement, are shocked when they land, quite abruptly into the sometimes cruel, harsh and unsupportive world the rest of us live in.  While I have very few memories that evoke the same powerful feelings of fondness I experience when thinking about my time at Loyola, I also acknowledge that it was a sort of artificial and manufactured world.  At no other time in life will one's whole existence be dedicated toward one pursuit while having few other responsibilities or obligations.  And, while I think it's a fabulous idea, it's simply not realistic to remain living with large masses of other people of similar age, in crappy, roach infested dorm rooms (which, believe it or not, also invoke feelings of fondness in me), eating school cafeteria food (also, sometimes roach-infested), drinking beer in the Wolf Pub and spending every spare quarter in the Miss (or was it Ms?) Pacman machine.  A normal social evening would see us leaving campus at midnight to go out and spend a night in the French Quarter, getting home around 5:00am and still making an 8:00am class.  I was grateful to make it to my senior year, where I was not forced into those early morning time slots.

I recall staying up all night playing Trivial Pursuit, which was the big game during my graduate years. We plaed all night, finally falling into bed around 6:00am. Sometimes, I smoked my way through too many cigarettes, as my peers tended to do that sort of thing.  I should note here that I am not a smoker.  I just smoke other people's.  

It was not uncommon to spend a whole evening in discussion with a friend who was facing what seemed to him or her to be a life-altering traumatic episode.  Everything seemed life-altering and traumatic during those years though.  I suspect most of the conversations had to do with the paths of our love-lives (both real and, in my case, imagined).

Fridays were quarter beer and free oyster days, and sometimes our favorite faculty joined us in the venture to find the best deal in one of New Orleans' seedier bars.  We would spend hours hashing out "issues" and debating deep theological subjects--or not.  Sometimes, we just sat around, drank beer, ate oysters and laughed.  I had control over mixing the hot sauce--the right combinations of Tabasco, horseradish and ketchup.  

Here at Notre Dame, I often come face to face with individuals who long for the days of their college experience.  Back when I was a Rector in the residence hall, Football Saturdays were a bit of a nightmare.  Normal students, of course, were still in bed at 8:00am, sleeping off the effects of whatever excursions they were on the night before.  However, I was often confronted with the 50-80 year old alumni, who showed up at Breen-Phillips Hall, wanting to go in and see the rooms they inhabited during their junior year. 

As I walked about campus on those football weekends, the air was filled with snippets of stories--parents telling their children about their sophomoric antics, or two "buddies" reminiscing about the time they pulled some prank on Fr. So and So, all the while laughing, perhaps a bit too loudly.

You know, if I could magically transport myself back to that time, I would do it in a heartbeat.  The answer to "why" is simply this:  it was fun.  It was a rare time in life, a bit after adolescence but just before real "adult-hood"  where we didn't really have to be responsible.  Well, that's not exactly true.  Obviously, we had responsibilities to ourselves and our parents--to attend classes and to do the work.  We still (or at least most in my circle) believed that we had to live by some moral code and we weren't so self-immersed that we didn't care about others around us.  It wasn't exactly a free-for all.  But there is something wonderfully indescribable about the college years that invokes an overwhelming feeling of well-being, but also of wistfulness.  It is a time that I would love to go back to, but sadly have to acknowledge the reality that it is simply impossible to do so.  The experience is definitely tied up with the place (for me, Loyola University in New Orleans), but equally with age and development.  I can easily return to Loyola, and I could even enroll in classes (although I suspect my Religious Studies profs would run away screaming if they heard this).  But, despite what some of my current friends might say sarcastically, I cannot revert back to that developmental stage in life--somewhat carefree and immature, but yet mature enough to be searching for and trying to absorb those intangible things that will formulate who I am to become as an adult.  Quite simply--it was a blast.

Anyways, thanks for visiting MJ.  It was great to go back, if only for a few moments.